


The Secret Agent Affair

by JeanGraham



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 02:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20685833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: The star of a TV spy series finds genuine classified information.





	The Secret Agent Affair

The Secret Agent Affair 

* * *

  
by Jean Graham

The last strains of Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" segued into The   
Beatles' "Nowhere Man" as the colorfully-dressed teenagers, a   
transistor radio concealed somewhere in their midst, crowded onto   
the sun-baked California sidewalk. Goldman Film Studios had only   
one gate, and one beleaguered guard, both of which the teenybopper   
mob was determined to get past.

"Oh come on, man! Can't you just tell us when Bert Dolan'll come   
through here? We only wanna see him!"

"Yeah. Don't be a drag, will ya? Let us in!"

From across the street, Illya Kuryakin regarded the mod-garbed   
youngsters with open trepidation. "Must we go through that?" he   
asked Napoleon Solo. "Maybe there's another entrance."

His American partner grinned. "What's the matter? To hear you   
talk, anyone would think they don't have teenagers in Russia."

"We don't." At Solo's disbelieving look, he quickly added, "Well,   
not like these."

"I don't know what you're worried about. I doubt if they bite."

"Or bathe," Illya said cynically.

Mm." Solo fished his U.N.C.L.E. ID card out of a pocket as "Baby   
Love" by the Supremes drifted across the street over the noise of   
the crowd. "Well, I'm afraid 'ours not to reason why.' U.N.C.L.E.   
wants to know how a TV script outlining a genuine Thrush operation   
happened to turn up here, and we deliver."

Leaning on the parked U.N.C.L.E. car, Illya folded his arms. "I   
still say it's only a coincidence. Kidnapping defecting Soviet   
military officers is hardly an original idea, you know. Even for   
American television."

"Maybe. But naming the defector Colonel Anatoly Guryevich Prolenko   
in both the script and real life is a bit of an overdose of   
coincidence for my taste."

Kuryakin stood instantly upright, away from the car. "They used   
his name?"

"So I've been told. First thing we have to do is get a look at   
that script. They haven't started shooting it yet; our informants   
said it wasn't scheduled for production till some time next month."

Solo started across the street, and his blond partner reluctantly   
followed. "Not that it matters, but which television series has   
managed to accomplish this incredible 'coincidence'?"

"The one they're trying to get in to see." Solo nodded toward the   
teenagers. "Biggest hit of the '66 season. Simon Kohl, Secret   
Agent."

"Kohl?" Illya made a face. "I thought that was some sort of   
cabbage."

An outcry from the crowd drowned Solo's response. A young girl's   
voice bewailed the guard's continued refusal to allow her past the   
gate. "If you don't let me meet Bert," she moaned, "I'm just gonna   
curl up and die, right on your doorstep!"

The guard, stocky, greying and jowl-faced, was unimpressed.

Illya stopped on the sidewalk just short of the crowd, and gave   
Solo a querulous look. "Who's Bert?"

"Who's...?" Solo looked surprised. "Bert Dolan. Superspy Simon's   
alter-ego. I keep forgetting you don't own a TV set."

"Hmph," Illya responded, eyeing the primarily female contingent of   
fans. "I refuse to be sorry. I can think of far more interesting   
things to do on the rare occasions that I'm home..."

"You have a point." Solo edged his way into the press of bodies and   
headed for the gate. Halfway through, he felt a small hand clamp   
onto his own, and he turned to look into soft green eyes framed by   
too much make-up and a Buffy Saint-Marie hairdo.

"You're a producer, aren't you?" Her voice was high, and as thin as   
the rest of her. "You really look like a producer. Like,   
Establishment, y'know?"

"Wha--?" Her frontal assault had taken Solo by surprise. He met   
Illya's bemused look with a weak smile and recovered his composure   
enough to tactfully give the girl back her hand. "No no.   
Actually, I'm just ... uh..." _A spy,_ his mind teased._ A real _  
_one._ "...visiting," he finished lamely.

All interest in him instantly dissolving, she turned on Illya.   
"Are you a producer or a director or something? I mean, you don't   
look Establishment, but sometimes you never know. You're an actor,   
maybe, huh?"

Kuryakin half-smiled at her. "Sorry," he said. "I'm just   
visiting, too."

They worked their way a little closer to the guard's booth. This   
time they were intercepted by a boy of perhaps 15, wearing John   
Lennon glasses and a rainbow sarape. "Have you got passes?" he   
queried hopefully. "Maybe you can let a few of us in with you?"

"I'm afraid not," Solo told him. "Nothing personal."

"I wanna get the back of my hand autographed," one of the girls   
sighed. "Then I'd never ever wash it again. Gawd, that'd be so   
_groovy!"_

"You know something?" Another of the teenage girls had suddenly   
attached herself to Illya. "You're cute!"

Solo restrained the urge to laugh aloud at the Russian's pained   
expression.

"Thank you," Illya said, tight-lipped. He tried to disentangle his   
arm, but his captor persisted.

"Are you a Simon Kohl fan, too? Isn't he boss?"

Illya squirmed. "I... uh..."

"He doesn't watch television," Solo said, coming to the rescue.   
"Has a bad case of bibliophilia."

The girl released Illya's arm immediately, and inched away. "Oh.   
That's not catching, is it?"

Kuryakin stared at her for a moment. "Regrettably, no," he   
replied.

They made their way at last to the booth, showed the weary guard   
their U.N.C.L.E. identification, and were escorted inside over the   
protests of the crowd. Simon Kohl's set, they were told, was just   
two blocks to the west and easy to find.

Solo looked down at his suit as they started walking past the   
studio office buildings. Then, glancing at Illya's omnipresent   
pullover and black jacket, he said, "Is it nice to know that you   
don't look 'Establishment'?"

The Russian shrugged. "Is it nice to know that you do?"

Solo returned the shrug.

Simon Kohl's 'set' was an artificial lake traversed by a flimsy   
footbridge. Some fifty cast and crew members milled between the   
profuse lighting and camera equipment, and chaos was reigning.

"Tilt the reflectors, Ed. I need more light on the bridge!"

"Wardrobe! Bert has to have that breakaway suit, stat!"

"No, not there! It'll be in the shot..."

"More script changes? _More?"_

"A three camera shot, Donald. I don't want to miss any action   
here."

  
"Make-up!!"

A strident buzzer, pitched somewhere between a foghorn and a   
wounded moose, deadened the uproar.

"OK, quiet!" the director shouted. "Where are my stuntmen?"

The U.N.C.L.E. agents watched as two men in dark fatigues took   
positions on the bridge, and when the cameras had begun rolling,   
proceeded to act out an oddly silent fight scene. None of their   
blows connected, so the resulting pantomime appeared almost   
balletic. The 'fight' culminated in one man's fall through a balsa   
wood railing and into the shallow water below.

"All right, cut!" the director yelled. "Print it! Lynn, get Bert   
back out here for the close-ups, will you?"

Lynn, an attractive redhead with a clipboard on one arm, summoned   
Bert Dolan out of a nearby dressing trailer, and the handsome star,   
dressed in identical fatigues, replaced the victorious fighter on   
the narrow bridge.

Illya, observing the proceedings glumly, said, "He doesn't look   
particularly 'groovy' to me."

Surprised at the uncharacteristic Americanism, Solo laughed.   
"Well, you're not 15, female and desperately in love with every   
idol in the teen magazines. Bert should enjoy it while he can.   
Next year, he'll be somewhere in nostalgia-ville."

"Can I help you gentlemen?" The redhead with the clipboard had   
noticed them, and Solo appreciatively noticed her back.

"I hope so," he said, and produced his ID card again. "We're from   
the U.N.C.L.E. We'd like to ask you a few questions about one of   
your upcoming scripts, Miss--?

"Weber. Lynn Weber." There was both suspicion and concern in her   
green eyes. "I'm the script supervisor."

"Oh really?" Solo turned on his most engaging smile, and quickly   
outlined their assignment for her. Illya, long since familiar with   
the m.o., stood by silently while Lynn Weber's suspicions melted   
under the world-renowned Solo charm.

"I'm sure I can find you a copy of the script," she said when Solo   
had finished the run-down. "And you'll want to talk to Bert. He   
wrote that one."

Illya glanced at the fight choreography being replayed on the   
bridge with Dolan. "He writes, too?"

"Uh-huh. Our last three episodes. It's not standard procedure,   
but when you're the reigning tube idol and top Nielsen-getter..."   
She paused, perhaps to curtail a sarcastic comment. "He's not all   
that bad, tell you the truth. Why don't you give me a minute, OK?   
I'll let him know you're here."

While Solo un-candidly admired her retreat, Illya turned to survey   
the rest of the studio's back-lot. He filed a mental note to have   
U.N.C.L.E. check into Goldman's financial status. The facades of   
the nearby western set were in a sorry state of disrepair, and an   
adjoining "European" sector looked on the verge of actually falling   
down.

Before he had time to call in the request, however, he and Solo   
were ushered into the cramped dressing trailer and shortly   
introduced to the star of 'Simon Kohl.' Lynn Weber made the   
introductions and promptly left again, though not without first   
bestowing a script and a radiant smile on Napoleon Solo.

Handsome Bert was considerably less cordial. He glared at them in   
the harshly lit dressing mirror while vigorously attacking his   
make-up job with a sponge. "I never heard of this uncle," he said   
irritably. "And I dunno what this flap over my script is all   
about, but you've got exactly three minutes to explain it to me. I've   
got another take coming up."

Dolan's being the only chair in the place, Solo and Illya were   
obliged to stand behind him and address his reflection.

"Would you mind telling us where you came by the... uh... plot line   
for this story, Mr. Dolan?" Solo thumbed through the multi-colored   
pages of the script Lynn had just given him.

"Came by?" Bert huffed. "I don't know what you're implying, but I   
didn't 'come by it' anywhere. I wrote it."

With a knowing look at Solo, Illya accepted a folded sheet of paper   
from him, glanced at it briefly, then handed it to the actor.   
"This is an authorized reproduction of part of a confidential   
U.N.C.L.E. document. It compares your script with the factual   
kidnapping of one Anatoly Guryevich Prolenko, defecting Soviet   
military officer. You will note that the only difference seems to   
be the substitution of the name Kragg -- your fictional crime   
syndicate -- for Thrush."

Scarcely glancing at the paper, Dolan dropped it between various   
hairbrushes on the dressing table. "Geez, where'd they get you   
guys, Zap Comic Books?"

A loud rap on the flimsy trailer door accompanied a muffled voice.   
"Ready for the chase sequence!"

Solo tried to block the TV star's path out, and found himself   
shoved rudely into Illya as a result. Dolan promptly disappeared,   
leaving the door open.

"Nice fella," Solo said facetiously.

"Someone should turn his friends at the front gate loose on him."   
Illya retrieved the U.N.C.L.E. document from the dresser and tucked   
it into a jacket pocket. "What now?"

"Well, we've tried asking nicely. I guess now we ask not-so-   
nicely." Solo started out, but Illya caught his coat sleeve.

"Napoleon... Did you notice anything odd about this place?"

"Huh? You mean other than pretty-boy Dolan out there? No, why?"

"We passed several other sets and sound stages on the way in here,   
and none of them was in use except for this one. Shouldn't a   
supposedly thriving television studio have more than one production   
in progress at once?"

Solo considered that. Now that Illya mentioned it, he hadn't seen   
any other film crews on the lot. "Well," he said. "Maybe it   
isn't thriving."

"Mm. And maybe there's also more to Goldman studios than initially   
meets the eye. You keep after our fair-haired super-spy. I think   
I'll prowl a bit."

"Suspicious Russian," Solo quipped. Then, more serious, he added,   
"All right, I'll cover for you. Just stay out of trouble. Or is   
that too much to ask?"

Illya ignored the additional jibe. He already had his pen   
communicator in hand, prepared to call in for the financial check   
on Goldman Studios. As Solo left the trailer, his partner was   
quietly requesting channel D.

Simon Kohl, secret agent extraodinaire, was currently embroiled in   
a tire-squealing car chase, or at least the concluding scenes of   
one. As Solo approached the film crew, a late-model Corvette   
careened down the road in front of the cameras, a black Cadillac in   
hot pursuit. The little car braked, skidded and spun out on the   
brink of the artificial lake. Its larger adversary squealed to a   
halt several yards away. The director yelled 'cut' again, and   
production stopped just long enough for Bert Dolan to hastily   
replace the stunt driver behind the wheel of the sports car. With   
film rolling once again, a strangely silent gun battle ensued, with   
three trench-coated baddies in the black Caddy vollying shots out   
the windows at Simon Kohl, whose .38 caliber revolver answered with   
equally anemic clicking sounds. Solo noted with some amusement   
that a 3-inch silencer had been screwed onto the .38's barrel. One   
of the villains was also using a silenced revolver.

This time when the camera stopped, a lengthy consultation was   
followed by a clapboard man whose slate read "take 2," and the   
entire gun battle sequence was repeated.

  
In the next take, a bullet from Kohl's trusty revolver ignited the   
Cadillac's gas tank, and the bad guys (now safely replaced by   
uncomplaining dummies) exploded in a flaming fireball. While the   
technical crew attacked the burning car with fire extinguishers,   
Lynn Weber spotted Solo and came toward him.

"Great stuff, huh?"

Less than tactful, Solo said, "Well, uh..."

"Oh, come on!" She sounded hurt. "Don't tell me you're one of   
those people who never watches television."

"Oh, I do. Now and then. It's just that... Well, excuse me, but   
one little bullet would have a hard time blowing up a Cadillac.   
And then..."

"This is Hollywood, Mr. Solo. We blow cars up every day, even   
without bullets. Sometimes all we need is a little slide down a   
hill or a nice big crash into another car. And then...?"

"What? Oh. Then there's the gun. I guess I never looked that   
closely on TV, but..."

"What's wrong with the gun?"

"Uh... It's a .38 caliber revolver, with a silencer."

"So are lots of our guns. Silencers are 'in' this year."

"Yeah, well I guess that's nice, but it doesn't work. I mean, you   
can't silence a revolver. An automatic, yes: that's a closed-   
chamber explosion. But a revolver is open-chambered, you see, so   
there's no way to stop the sound from escaping out the back. It's   
sort of like..."

He trailed off, aware that she was staring at him like a trial   
judge pondering whether to sentence the convicted malefactor to the   
loony bin.

"Listen," he said hastily, "I still have to ask ol' Bert over there   
a few questions. Any chance you can arrange an uninterrupted   
interview?" He gave her another smile and was gratified to see her   
return it.

"I'll see what I can do. By the way, Mr. Solo, where's your   
friend?"

"Around," Solo replied vaguely. "Somewhere."

  
* * *

  
Illya Kuryakin strolled un-accosted through the various street sets   
of the back lot. Other than the fact that it was deathly quiet,   
something else about the deserted studio bothered him. He wasn't   
certain yet what it was, but U.N.C.L.E.'s report on Goldman Inc.   
had left him more suspicious than ever. The corporation had   
liquidated its plummeting stocks and filed for chapter 11   
bankruptcy over two years ago. Fourteen months later, an anonymous   
party had taken it over, evicted all the studio employees, and set   
"Simon Kohl" up as the one and only product of the new Goldman   
Incorporated.

The perfect cover for a Thrush front if ever he'd heard one.

He emerged from the European sector into a broad street flanked on   
either side by sound stages. The huge, hangar-like buildings were   
all padlocked save one, which had its corrugated steel door   
invitingly ajar.

Perhaps too invitingly...

Kuryakin slipped the modified Walther U.N.C.L.E. Special out of its   
concealed shoulder holster, and stepped cautiously through the   
opening.

Cooler air. Shadows. A faint oil odor, like a mechanic's garage.   
And an almost repressive quiet broken only by his own footsteps on   
the gritty concrete floor. Stray cables snaked high overhead   
across a soundproofed ceiling. Below that, dented klieg lights   
drooped crookedly from low-hung scaffolding. The dilapidated   
remains of a few interior sets lined the walls: a country kitchen,   
parlor and dining room, a modern office, and something vaguely   
resembling the inside of a submarine.

Intrigued by the latter, Illya approached it and deftly ran his   
penlight over the submarine "controls." Strange. They were the   
only thing in here not coated with dust. He ran a hand over the   
panel, experimentally pressing a button here or there. Most were   
nonfunctional plastic dummies, but one stud gave beneath his touch   
and clicked loudly. Green light glowed from beneath the panel, and   
illuminated several of the keys. Pocketing the penlight, though   
not the Special, Illya quickly scanned the designations, paused   
over a key marked "ELEV," and carefully pressed it.

With a lurch and a loud hum, the floor began dropping out from   
under him. He turned a circle with the gun ready, but no one   
awaited him on the harshly-lit lower level. The hydraulic floor   
deposited him in a hospital-like corridor, with green paint half   
way up the otherwise naked walls and closed doors running up, down   
and off to either side. No one was about, but the air of disuse   
prevalent everywhere else was definitely absent here. He could   
feel it.

With the Special held in front of him, he approached the corridor   
intersection, where a circular desk like a nurse's station harbored   
a bank of television monitors. Several were on and operating, and   
one of them showed Illya a sterile cell paced nervously by a man he   
recognized as Anatoly Guryevich Prolenko.

The scuff of a shoe on the bare tile floor came too late for him to   
avoid the blow that sent his Special flying. Another followed,   
slamming him into the plaster wall of the counter before he could   
strike back. He landed with his shoulder blades grinding into the   
wall, and the barrel of a Luger resting squarely between his eyes.   
A thick index finger with a dirty nail twitched anxiously at the   
trigger.

"Back off, Walt." The calm voice that staid the trigger finger was   
all authority -- and female. "Do you think I let him get all the   
way down here just so you could put a bullet in him? Come over   
here!"

The Luger retreated along with Walt's hammy hand. The rest of him,   
Illya noted, was no more attractive. But the woman who'd called   
him off might have stepped out of the pages of Fashion World   
Magazine. Illya had seen her face before, in an U.N.C.L.E. file.   
His mind sifted rapidly through a long list of names and matched   
one of them with the remembered photograph. Lauren Macek; European   
Thrush operative specializing in chemical and psychological methods   
of extortion, coercion... and "interrogation."

"Mr. Kuryakin, I believe," she said smugly, proving that   
U.N.C.L.E. wasn't the only organization to keep thorough files on   
its adversaries. "How kind of U.N.C.L.E. to send you, of all   
people, to pry into my studio."

Illya looked up at her from under the still-present threat of   
Walt's gun. _"Your_ studio?"

"Yes, it's mine. And so is Anatoly Prolenko, though he isn't ready   
to admit it yet. Did you know the wretched little turncoat doesn't   
speak a word of English? Or French, or Italian?"

"Really?" Illya was beginning to see where this carefully-laid trap   
would be leading. "How terribly inconsiderate of him."

She smoothed platinum hair back with a manicured hand and smiled.   
"Thrush has translators, of course. But the nearest one is in   
Florida poisoning fish tanks or something and can't be sent until   
tomorrow. So you see I was particularly pleased to see you on our   
above-ground surveillance cameras. Colonel Prolenko is in need of   
someone to explain the worthwhile benefits of Thrush to him."

Walt's Luger still danced impatiently. "Can I put a bullet in him   
after that?" he asked anxiously.

Macek's smile became patronizingly indulgent. "Put him in the cell   
with Prolenko. Then go and bring the other one. And Walt -- don't   
forget to search him, thoroughly." She turned on one spike heel and   
disappeared down a side corridor. Walt, motioning Illya up,   
proceeded to carry out her last order.

Deprived of communicator, heat capsules, wristwatch and both shoes   
(Walt was thorough if not terribly bright), Illya was escorted down   
another hall and into the cell he had seen on the TV monitor.   
Anatoly Prolenko, no longer pacing, looked up from the bunk as the   
cell door slammed shut and inquired in gruff Russian as to what the   
hell was going on.

Illya waited until Walt's blocky figure had vanished down the hall.   
Then in his native language, he said simply, "You have been   
kidnapped by Thrush, Colonel."

Startled, Prolenko came up off the bed. "You are Russian?"

"My name is Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, and I work for an   
organization known as U.N.C.L.E. I was sent here to investigate a   
Thrush plot to kidnap you. I'm sorry to say I hardly expected to   
find the operation already this far advanced."

Under a shock of grey hair, worry lines wrinkled the colonel's   
forehead. "What is this Thrush? What kind of insane country   
permits such a thing to exist?" Illya spent the next 20 minutes   
explaining Thrush, U.N.C.L.E., Lauren Macek, and the fact that the   
U.S. of A. was not the only insane country in which Thrush was able   
to operate. Before he'd finished, a disturbance outside the cell   
announced the return of Walt, with two Thrush reinforcements and   
three new prisoners: Lynn Weber, Bert Dolan, and Napoleon Solo.   
The latter was dragged in with a Thrush thug pulling on either arm,   
and from the look of him, Solo had given them quite a fight.

When the new arrivals had been crowded into the cell, Walt marched   
off again, leaving his accomplices to stand guard.

"Are you all right?" Illya noted the purpling bruises on his   
partner's face with concern. Solo, disgusted, merely nodded.

"What is this?" Bert Dolan was yelling. "Who are all you people   
anyhow? Look, I've got a TV show to shoot here, so would you mind   
just--?"

"Bert," Lynn Weber interrupted. "Shut up."

Solo glanced at Prolenko and then at Illya. "Is that...?"

Illya nodded.

"How long has he been down here?"

Kuryakin translated the question and turned back to Solo with the   
answer. "Only one day here. They held him in a house somewhere   
prior to that."

"And he doesn't speak any English? Doesn't it behoove one to learn   
the language of the country one defects to?"

Illya's only response was a noncommittal shrug of the eyebrows.

"By the way," Solo added, "there were two more of your countrymen   
upstairs a while ago, also looking for the colonel. Said their   
names were Darov and Serkovich, or something like that. Ring any   
bells?"

Prolenko's eyes went wide at Solo's mention of the names, and he   
gasped something in rapid-fire Russian.

"Wonderful," Illya breathed. "He says your visitors were from the   
KGB and the GRU, respectively."

Lynn Weber was confused. "The GR who?"

"Soviet military intelligence," Solo told her.

"KGB," Bert grumbled. "GRU, U.N.C.L.E., Thrush. What is this,   
alphabet soup?"

"Something like that," Solo answered. "Oh, and Bert... I'd like you   
to meet Colonel Anatoly Guryevich Prolenko. The man you 'invented'   
for that script of yours. What did you do to get hold of all that   
information, anyhow?"

Illya solved part of the mystery by simple deduction. "The studio   
is a Thrush front," he said. "He probably raided the office files   
and just plagiarized some of the better 'plots.'"

Dolan flushed. "I didn't know any of it was real! Look, Solo, I   
don't want to be involved in any of this, so would you please tell   
your gorilla friends out there--"

"You don't want to be involved?" Lynn Weber huffed. "You _caused_   
this mess, you egomaniacal imbecile!" She leaned back into a corner   
of the cell with her arms crossed, and the glare in her green eyes   
dared Dolan to argue. He didn't.

Walt had returned again, this time with Lauren Macek. She slipped   
a small, boxy gun from a coat pocket as she regarded the cell full   
of people. Loading the weapon with six needle-tipped bullets, she   
said, "Really, Walter. I didn't ask you to bring half the   
population of West Hollywood down here."

"They were all together," Walt said defensively. "What was I   
s'posed to do?"

"Follow my orders, Walt. You were also told not to damage Solo.   
You disobeyed that order as well. Two mistakes in a row. I'm   
afraid that's two more than Thrush is willing to tolerate."

The big man's face went ashen as the little gun came up to point at   
him. It spat once. Walt clutched at his stomach and went down at   
the feet of his two companions, who watched compassionlessly. Lynn   
Weber cried out and buried her face in Solo's coat. While the rest   
of the gathering stared, something grotesque began to happen on the   
floor outside the cell. Gasping, Walt writhed on the polished   
tile, his body twisting into impossible contortions. Solo and   
Illya both watched in grim fascination as Macek's victim, eyes and   
tongue bulging hideously, screamed in agony, flopped over, and   
finally lay still.

"Not exactly the best of test subjects," Lauren Macek said into the   
stunned silence. "But adequate for demonstration purposes. The   
gun is called a Lenzor, Mr. Kuryakin, after its Thrush inventor.   
The bullets are miniature explosive charges tipped with   
endrothanophene, a pain inducing drug. The results, as you see,   
are imminently satisfying."

_"Bozhe moi."_ Anatoly Prolenko, who had watched the grisly events   
from the back of the cell, sat down hard on the edge of the wooden   
bunk._ "It is insane, this place. All of the people are insane."_

The Lenzor in Macek's hand swiveled to point directly at Napoleon   
Solo, and the woman behind it smiled. "Now that we've proven the   
weapon effective, let's get to business, shall we? Mr. Kuryakin,   
you will translate my instructions to Colonel Prolenko exactly as   
I give them. No tricks, or your friend will be following in   
Walter's late, un-lamented footsteps."

The U.N.C.L.E. agents exchanged jaundiced glances. It was an old   
ploy, but no less effective for its age. Reluctantly, Illya nodded   
an assent.

"Tell him that I have studied the methods of his former government.   
I find their persuasive methods most impressive. Tell him Thrush   
would prefer he cooperate with us voluntarily, but we are prepared   
to be persuasive."

Illya dutifully translated the veiled threat. Prolenko's response   
was a characterisitic Russian grunt. "Manipulative, scheming   
woman," he said irritably in Russian. "It is well said, 'Where the Devil   
can't do anything, he sends a woman in his stead.' Tell her to take   
her peculiar-looking little gun and..." Colonel Prolenko   
graphically described a physiological impossibility.

Unflinching, Illya looked up at Lauren Macek and deadpanned, "He   
isn't interested."

The beautiful woman with the gun frowned, but kept the weapon aimed   
at Solo. "Then tell him Thrush has men watching the wife he left   
behind in Leningrad. If he wishes to see her again, he will do as   
we ask."

That, Illya decided, was most likely a bluff. If Prolenko had   
indeed left a wife behind, then she was almost certainly a guest of   
the KGB by now, and out of Thrush's reach. He translated the lines   
anyhow.

Prolenko's reaction surprised him. "Wife?" he hissed. "They may   
shoot her, for all that I care. The woman is a harridan and a   
shrew. If I cared about her, do you think I would come here? She   
was reason enough to leave Russia! I should have done it long ago,   
if it had not been for..."

The tirade continued, but Illya turned back to Macek and said   
calmly, "He still isn't interested."

Lauren Macek's response was interrupted by the sudden flashing of   
the overhead lights. The two Thrush thugs pulled their guns and   
headed off down the corridor at a trot just as an explosion rattled   
the ceiling. Cursing, Macek spun and followed after them.

"Sounds like maybe our friends from the KGB and the GRU have come   
calling," Solo said. "You got anything to open this lock with?"

Illya looked dejectedly down at his stocking feet. "No. Have   
you?"

Solo shook his head.

"What about this?" Bert Dolan dug into a pocket and produced the   
prop .38 with its phony silencer.

Illya took it from him, incredulous. "You've had that all along?"

"It's a prop gun. I'm a fake secret agent, remember? They didn't   
even bother to search me."

Solo looked balefully out at the corpse on the floor. "That's   
three mistakes, Walt old buddy."

Scowling wordlessly at the out-of-place silencer, Illya unscrewed   
it, handed it across to Solo, and proceeded to open and empty the   
.38's chamber.

"Can you shoot the lock off with it or something?" Dolan asked.

With a patient glance at Solo, Illya said, "Even if the bullets   
weren't blanks, that would probably do nothing but jam the lock.   
There is another possibility, though." He handed the empty gun to   
Solo, then positioned the blank cartridges carefully in his   
handkerchief and tied it into a small bundle. This he shoved into   
the brief space between the cell door and the adjoining wall.

"Does anyone have a cigarette lighter? Or a match?"

Everyone but Prolenko began searching pockets, but no lighter   
turned up.

"Well," Solo sighed. "It was a nice idea while it lasted."

"Don't bury it just yet." Illya turned to Prolenko.   
"Zatsigalka?" he asked.

  
The colonel dug enthusiastically into a pocket and handed across a   
heavy silver lighter. Illya gave it a satisfied little toss in the   
air before snapping open the lid to ignite it.

"How can you open the lock with that?" Lynn Weber wanted to know.   
"It's only blanks. You said so yourself."

Solo drew her away from the door as Illya ignited the handkerchief,   
and the others followed suit. "Even blanks have enough gun powder   
to go 'bang'," he said. "Get your heads down."

It was a small but noisy explosion: a succession of loud pops that   
were echoed by gunfire from the corridors beyond. Solo (who still   
had his shoes) and Prolenko took turns kicking at the burned lock   
until it finally gave way, and the captives spilled joyously out   
into the hallway. Illya stopped just long enough to liberate his   
shoes, two communicators and a pair of U.N.C.L.E. Specials from the   
nearby desk, while Solo relieved Walt of his Luger and handed it to   
Dolan.

"You know how to use a real one of these?"

"Uh... I dunno. I never tried."

"Well you may have to learn. In a hurry. Come on."

They headed toward the exit, and promptly ran into a gun battle   
raging between Thrush and two men in dark blue business suits who   
had broken through the submarine-set elevator. Solo herded the   
group into another corridor, where they all pressed their backs to   
the wall.

"The only exit appears to be busy," Illya said.

Solo checked the clip in his Special. "Yeah, well that's not our   
only problem. Those fellows in blue aren't the two Russians who   
came calling earlier. In fact, those 'uniforms' look more like CIA   
issue to me. Or maybe NSA."

"Alphabet soup," Bert Dolan repeated. "You forgot the FBI, the   
DAR, and the ASPCA."

Solo scowled. "Our Colonel Prolenko is one popular guy."

Another explosion shook the wall behind them. The firing from the   
other corridor abruptly ceased. Gun first, Illya peered around the   
corner and saw a smoky scene of devastation. The two Thrush hoods   
lay dead amid rubble from what had once been the elevator platform   
\-- but neither Lauren Macek nor either of the men in blue was   
anywhere in sight.

Cautiously, they each stepped out into the open, feet crunching on   
the debris-littered floor.

"So much for the only exit," Solo said, staring up at the   
impossibly high ceiling. "Even acrobats couldn't reach that."

"Then there's another way," Illya said. "Because Macek got out   
somehow."

"Lestnitsa!" The sudden shout directed their attention down one   
of the side corridors, where Prolenko stood at an open door, waving   
frantically at them. "Lestnitsa!" he repeated.

Solo looked pleadingly at Illya. "Now what's he saying?"

Mildly embarrassed, Illya replied, "He's found the stairs."

Minutes later, they emerged into the open air of a street outside   
the sound stage, surprised to find that dusk had fallen during their   
brief sojourn below. Streetlights cast cold pools of light on the   
deserted buildings, and everything was quiet. There were no signs   
of the combatants.

"Now whatta we do?" Bert Dolan whispered. The Luger trembled in   
his hand.

To Illya, Solo said, "I'll take these two to a safe place and call   
the local gendarmes. You get Prolenko out of here."

With a curt nod, Illya took the colonel firmly by one arm and led   
him off into the shadows. They'd traversed several of the European   
set blocks, angling toward the main gate, when a faint sound off to   
their left alerted Illya to another presence. He shoved Prolenko   
quickly into an alcove mere seconds before something _thocked_ into   
the plaster wall where they'd been standing. It hissed briefly and   
then burst with a soft, lethal explosion.

"Lenzor bullet," Illya murmured, and hastily worked the slide on   
his Special. "Madame Macek would appear to have found us."

"An insane, uncivilized country," Prolenko whispered in agitated   
Russian. "Everyone behaves like in American movies. I should have   
stayed in Leningrad with my shrew of a wife!"

"Shh!" His Special at ready, Illya tried to spot any movement   
beyond them in the shadowy street. Pressed flat against the   
artificial bricks of the alcove wall, he cautiously peered around   
the corner...

And ducked quickly back when another shot splintered the building's   
wood framework. In the same instant, something ripped through the   
left sleeve of his coat, and a branding-iron fire seared its way   
into his arm. He stumbled backward, felt Prolenko's hands pulling   
him down and away... from what?

A mini-explosion from the wall he'd just been standing against   
answered the question. Lauren Macek's bullet had burrowed into the   
phony brick and discharged itself--after traveling through part of   
his bicep with its drug-tipped needle. "You are hit," Prolenko   
informed him unnecessarily. "Be still. Let me look at it."

"No." Illya forced his hand away, never letting go of the all-   
important U.N.C.L.E. Special. "Stay down. Wait. Make her come   
to us."

"But your arm..."

"I am all right. It is nothing." The last was a half-truth. He   
had scarcely been grazed, yet his entire shoulder felt as though   
someone had clamped it in a vice grip and twisted the handle to   
"close." Stubbornly determined to ignore it, however, he sat down   
against the wall and rested the gun across one knee, waiting.

Nothing moved in the street.

After a long, almost suffocating silence, Prolenko said, "I must   
ask you a question, Comrade Kuryakin."

Illya looked up at him, silently assenting.

"Why did you come here, to this country?"

Contemplating that for a moment, Illya decided the best answer to   
the question was most likely another question. "Why did you?"

The scrape of gravel from the street brought them both to instant   
attention. The Special took aim at the darkness.

"It is enough," Prolenko said suddenly, and Illya was startled at   
his abrupt movement toward the sidewalk. "Enough of this! Do you   
hear me, crazy woman? Prolenko is here!"

  
Kuryakin tried to grab for him too late. The pain in his arm   
prevented him from getting to his feet in time, and the Soviet   
colonel marched foolhardily out into the open, muttering angry   
Russian epithets as he went. Illya made it out of the alcove   
several steps behind him, but by the time he had managed to snag   
the sleeve of the colonel's coat, Lauren Macek had stepped out into   
the feeble light with the Lenzor pointed squarely at Prolenko. He   
froze, and from the other side of him, Illya's Special leveled   
itself at Lauren Macek.

"A charmingly classic stand-off," she said acidly. "But I have the   
advantage. Tell this Russian oaf that he'll work for Thrush or for   
no one at all. I have absolutely nothing to lose at this point by   
killing him."

"Nothing but your life," Illya said tonelessly.

Macek smirked at him. "Are you willing to trade mine for his?   
Don't be an idiot, Kuryakin. Tell him what I said."

Despite the agony crawling slowly through his shoulder muscles,   
Illya's grip on the P-38 never wavered. "Sorry," he said. "Fresh   
out of translations. Put the Lenzor down. Then we'll talk."

Her face said plainly that she didn't quite believe his threat.   
"No qualms about shooting a woman, Mr. Kuryakin?"

Not a hint of emotion was betrayed in the answer. "None whatever."

"I really should have let that idiot Walter kill you when he had   
the chance. You're as stupid as he was..."

Something in her eyes forewarned Illya of her action a split second   
before she took it. The Lenzor swung away from Prolenko to aim at   
him, one slender, manicured finger closing steadily on the   
trigger...

Illya shot her.

The Special coughed three times, its gun-flash punctuating the dark.   
Macek's shot slammed harmlessly into the cobbled pavement. She   
gave a single, startled cry before collapsing on top of it, and the   
soft explosion of the Special bullet a moment later made her   
already-lifeless body jerk spasmodically.

Silently, Prolenko knelt beside her and performed the superfluous   
motion of checking for a pulse. "Dushevnobolnoi," he breathed.   
"Even in the war, I never saw such madness."

Numbing cold had begun to overtake the fire in Illya's arm and   
shoulder, and good sign or bad, he was glad of it. He'd barely   
replaced the P-38 in its holster when the sound of running   
footsteps echoed in the distance.

"Get up!" he whispered sharply in Russian. "Someone is   
coming."

Prolenko got up. "Who is it?"

The footsteps clattered on cobblestones, coming closer.

"Alphabet soup. Ignoring the colonel's baffled look, Illya   
hastened him off down the shadowed street.

  
* * *

  
Napoleon Solo stood at Goldman Studio's only gate and watched a   
third LAPD contingent storm the now-floodlit back lot. Their search   
had thus far netted them two frustrated CIA men, one KGB, one GRU,   
and the body of one Lauren Macek.

"I don't like it," Solo admitted to Lynn Weber. "Illya should have   
checked in by how. It's been over three hours."

Nearby, Bert Dolan ran a hand through hopelessly rumpled hair and   
sighed. "Well why don't you try calling him? Don't all you real   
secret agents have telephones in your shoes or something?"

Solo shot him a murderous glance before pulling his communicator   
out and trying for the fifth time to raise Illya over channel D.   
There was still no answer. He'd just put the slender instrument   
away when a familiar, accented voice said, "Looking for me?"

Solo spun. "Illya! I've been trying to raise you for three   
hours!"

"Sorry. Had to turn it off. It uh... might have been awkward."

"Well where've you been? And where's Prolenko?"

The Russian smiled wryly. "With any luck, on his way back to   
Leningrad and a very shrewish wife."

Solo's face fell. "Leningrad? But I thought he was defecting?"

"So did he. But that was before he discovered the United States of   
America to be a hotbed of rampant insanity. He decided that   
retreat was indeed the better part of valor. So I sent him home."

"You sent him... ?" Solo stifled the echo. "How?"

"Code four-seven priority, on the U.N.C.L.E. jet." At Solo's   
stunned look, he added, "You will recall that ours is a multi-   
national, non-political organization."

"Mm. Well all the same, every now and then you still leave me to   
wonder just whose side you're on, did you know that?"

"I'm on the world's side, Napoleon." Illya rubbed at a still-numb   
arm and yawned. "I only wish the world would stop depriving me of   
so much sleep."

Three young voices from the nearby gate suddenly chorused Bert   
Dolan's name. A trio of teenage girls struggled to fight past the   
on-duty cop, creating the weird illusion of a uniformed Kali with   
six flailing arms.

"It's him! It's really him!"

"Oh, gawd. I'm gonna die! Simon Kohl, for real!"

Dolan turned to make a quick escape and found his way blocked by   
Lynn Weber. "Just a darn minute, Superspy Simon. Why don't you   
just once show those poor deluded kids that you know how to play   
the part of a human being? Huh?"

Dolan glared at her, opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again   
under her withering stare. "All right," he said, pulling a   
ballpoint pen from his pocket. "Just this once."

While the star of "Simon Kohl, Secret Agent" went off to enthrall   
his fan club, Lynn Weber seized Napoleon Solo's arm   
enthusiastically and began leading him away. "I've been thinking   
that maybe this series could use a little dose of reality,   
Napoleon. How would you like to serve as part time creative   
consultant? Or technical advisor? Or maybe we could call it..."

Illya noted Solo's pleased grin as the pair disappeared arm-in-arm   
down one of the floodlit sidewalks. Shaking his head slowly, he   
turned his own steps back toward the gate.

The world owed him a good night's sleep.

* * * The End * * *

See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>  



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